Finally, SmackDown week hits FOX on Friday, when the long-running WWE property shifts to broadcast television at 8p. The channel is welcoming its new show with a slate of special programming as well as a blue carpet at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the Friday Night SmackDown Kickoff Show at 7:30p, featuring arrivals and backstage access to celebrities and athletes, as well as past and present WWE Superstars to kick off the new era of WWE on FOX.
The move will represent the first time that a WWE property sat within a sports division for its platforms in lieu of an entertainment division. As such, Cynopsis Sports asked Robert Gottlieb, EVP of Marketing at FOX Sports, about the addition, putting his touch on its marketing and what we can expect moving forward.
Gottlieb on marketing a property like SmackDown: It’s a unique marketing challenge because it’s a sports entertainment crossover and lives in two different worlds. You can’t default to the same lens and tactics you’d use for a major sporting event, or the same defaults you’d use to launch a primetime show. That makes it really exciting and fun. WWE has an oversized pop culture imprint, and we have such a broad marketing voice speaking to both sports fans and entertainment fans, so that became a critical element of our strategy. We’re trying to amplify and reflect the pop culture impact of WWE and invite everybody into that party. When you see athletes, celebrities and people of all stripes embracing their inner love of WWE you realize how big that can be, and that became an important part of what we wanted to show.
On new promotional opportunities FOX offers: We were eager to have a unique marketing voice around SmackDown moving to FOX. We were very conscious of the fact that we didn’t want it to look, feel or sound like anything that had been around SmackDown before. Part of the weight and commitment to this property is that our entire promotional machine is heavily in support of it. We’ve had WWE Superstars join the booth at baseball games and do interviews on the sidelines of college football, we even broke the news of the WWE Draft across our NFL broadcasts in Week 2. Our entertainment properties have also gotten involved, from the Masked Singer adding “Smackdown” battles in Season 2, to Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque talking WWE on the Emmys red carpet on FOX. Across the board on FOX you’re seeing an unprecedented volume of marketing and promotion for WWE.
On the motivation behind the “We’re All Superstars” campaign: The notion that everyone, fan or not, has an innate understanding of how cool it might be to be a WWE superstar drove our campaign. The WWE is so a part of our collective psyche – striding into a room with your own walk-in music and pyro, jumping off a bunk bed to piledrive your brother – you don’t need to be a WWE fan to understand these tropes. The idea that we’ve all had those moments fantasizing how cool it would be to be in that ring is what inspired the “We’re All Superstars” campaign. Acknowledging everyone’s inner Superstar was something we thought would really resonate with sports fans and viewers across the spectrum.
On Friday Night SmackDown launch week and other unique activations: We started with the basics. SmackDown is moving to FOX, so let’s literally show the WWE moving to FOX. We built a tricked-out WWE moving truck and had Jeff Gordon kick off the first leg of the road trip. Then we brought Superstars to all these major sporting events and FOX affiliate stations across the country, so that was fun. We’ve also got a new augmented reality filter for Facebook and Instagram that allows fans to swap their face onto WWE video footage in real time to see themselves as various Superstars. It’s unique in that it’s a truly live video experience, so fans can really see themselves as The Rock or The Undertaker and share on social platforms. And starting today, we’re taking over the FOX Plaza at our New York City headquarters with an actual WWE ring. We’ll be featuring Superstars on FOX News’ “FOX & Friends” and FS1’s “First Things First” every day leading up to Friday night’s launch, in addition to other surprises across FOX programming all week long.
